Joe Manchin Endorses Susan Collins, If You Were Wondering What's New With Those Losers

Joe Manchin really likes Susan Collins. Who cares if he's a Democrat (kind of) and she's very much a Republican? They're both
longtime Senate colleagues, and Manchin is a political dinosaur from the Caucasity Age. Those were simpler times when everyone in Congress got along because they were all white, hung out at the same country clubs, and didn't disagree over each other's essential humanity.

During her first Senate race in 1996, Collins
pledged to serve just two terms. She's either a liar or can't count, but Manchin still thinks she's good people so he's already endorsed her for re-election in 2020. This is a strange thing for a Democrat to do, especially since defeating Collins is a key step in Democrats' narrow path to regaining Senate control. Why else does Manchin think we put up with him? It's a numbers game, and unfortunately California gets as many senators as Wyoming. Doesn't he want to be in the majority? He could co-chair the Energy Committee with a bag of coal.

MANCHIN: I would go up and campaign for Susan Collins. If she wanted me to, I would campaign for Susan Collins. For America to lose somebody like Susan Collins would be an absolute shame. I feel that strongly about her.

Dude, we don't blame you for wanting to leave West Virginia. We recommend timing your campaign trip around August. That's when all the best people summer in Maine. Maybe Collins can fix you up with some of that sweet lobster. It might seem like a good old boy senator from West Virginia wouldn't be much help in a state so far north it's practically Canada, but the rural part of Maine where Collins needs to run up big margins is a lot like West Virginia. It might actually
be West Virginia in a “Twilight Zone" twist.

Collins didn't actively support her BFF Manchin's own recent re-election campaign against Patrick Morrissey. She probably saw no decent long weekend opportunities in West Virginia. Besides, Republicans only really talk about bipartisanship. Democrats are the ones
dumb enough to go and do it. Manchin isn't alone: Beto O'Rourke refused to campaign against road tripping bro Will Hurd during an election where it was vital to democracy that the GOP lose the House. Hurd narrowly beat his Democratic challenger. Hurd for his part has said that he'll vote for Trump in 2020 even if Beto is the nominee. No hard feelings, though. He promises that on their next road trip, he'll absolutely chip in for gas.

Generally speaking, Republicans never support Democrats, even those they claim to like personally. Jeff Flake was chastised for endorsing Doug Jones in Alabama's US Senate race, and Jones was running against a
mall-cruising sex predator. Manchin doesn't even know who's opposing Collins in 2020. Maybe he got a tip that longtime Maine resident Pennywise the Dancing Clown is considering running. Collins is at least marginally better. Although for the chance to remove Mitch McConnell from power, we might give Pennywise another look.

Collins is relying a lot on out-of-state help. She's raised more than $1.1 million so far this year, but just 1 percent of that came from people who actually live in Maine. During the same period in 2012, in-state donations made up 41 percent of her total haul. We wouldn't mind her accepting non-local campaign contributions, but when it comes time to confirm a Supreme Court justice, she claims she only has ears for her "true" constituents. That's just donation without representation.

Women Democrats have been team players and held their noses while Manchin stunk up our caucus with his lousy record on
abortion rights. Now he's publicly endorsed a pro-choice Yankee. That's not really a demonstration of country or friendship over party. It just means that even in West Virginia, they realize that Collins is a fraud who'll continue rubber stamping Trump's anti-abortion judges like any good Republican.

Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Seattle. However, he's more reliable for food and drink recommendations in Portland, where he spends a lot of time for theatre work. His co-adaptation of "Jitterbug Perfume" by Tom Robbins is playing NOW at Pioneer Square's Cafe Nordo. All Wonketters welcome.

You guys, hi, hello, it is almost the holiday weekend, so we are going to share you a real video posted last night by "Doctor" Sebastian "Don't Call Me A Nazi" Gorka, that hilarious old knucklecuck. We guess now that he had to give up (or gave up voluntarily!) his Fox News contract, he just makes videos for the Twitter. Hoo ... ray?

Anyway, Gorka is super-excited that Donald Trump issued that order last night, giving Bill Barr all kinds of new powers to expose the Deep State for what it is and PROVE once and for all that the gremlins who live inside Trump's diarrhea are correct when they say Hillary ordered the Deep State to do an illegal witch hunt to Trump, yadda yadda yadda, you've seen these people huff paint before, we don't have to type it all.

Here is the video, after which Wonkette will either transcribe it OR we will provide our own dramatic interpretation. Which one will it be? We don't know! Would you be able to tell the difference between the two? We don't know!

We want to say right here at the outset that we hate Julian Assange. Aside from the sexual assault allegations against him, and aside from the fact that he's just a generally stinky and loathsome person who reportedly smeared poop on the walls at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, while reportedly not taking care of his cat, an innocent creature, he acted as Russia's handmaiden during the 2016 election, in order to further Russia's campaign to steal it for Donald Trump. All signs point to his campaign being a success!

So we are justifiably happy when bad things happen to Julian Assange. We are happy his name is shit the world over, and that any reputation WikiLeaks used to have for being on the side of freedom and transparency has been stuffed down the toilet where it belongs. We are happy he looked like such a sad-ass loser when the Ecuadorian embassy finally kicked him out and he was arrested.

And quite frankly, we were OK with the initial charge against him recently unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia. If you'll remember, he was charged with trying to help Chelsea Manning hack a password into the Defense Department, which is not what journalists do. Journalists do not drive the get-away car for sources. Journalists do not hold their sources' hair back while they're stealing classified intel. Assange is essentially accused of doing all that.

Now, put all that aside. Because -- and this is key -- journalists do publish secrets they are provided by sources. That's First Amendment, chapter and verse, American as fucking apple pie and fast-food-induced diabetes. And that is what much of the superseding indictment of Assange unsealed yesterday was about. (And nope, it wasn't about anything regarding Assange's ratfucking the 2016 election or Hillary's emails. Why would the Trump Justice Department prosecute anything about that? It's all about the older Chelsea Manning stuff, the stuff the Obama Justice Department considered charging Assange with, but ultimately declined, because of that little thing called the First Amendment.)